Redstate

Excellent analysis.  I can see why they brought you on board.

A corrollary would be the rising Dem dominance in New England.  Obviously, New England for the South is a good trade -- population wise -- for the GOP.  But it seems like the obvious comparison; why have the Democrats taken over in New England, and, to a lesser extent, the West Coast?  Are those regions intrinsicly pro-government in the same way the south is anti-government?

piss-poor ones.

http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm

Differences in education quality by state may be correlated with political preference, but I doubt they do much to cause political preference.

Actually, snideness aside, I always wondered how New England went so left over the course of time.

On that list, yes, you have a lot of blue states at the top, but you have amongst them quite a few blue states trending red (Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Pennsylvania).  And there are some real doozies of blue states near the bottom as well, like California, Hawaii, and blue-trending red states like Nevada and Arizona.  And New York State's ranking is probably more from being a brain magnet with large business rather than its own educational system being solid, considering that most other top states on that list are of the smaller persuasion (excuse them, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and there are no other large states in the top 19).  And some of the most blue-trending states (like, sadly, Michigan) are pretty far down the list... there is no real pattern, really.

After all, polls show that people with college degrees tend to vote Republican, but people with graduate-level degrees are split to slightly Democrat.  Intelligence means little... socioeconomic status is a better corrolator, as Democrats tend to pick up the most votes in both extreme ends of the income scale.

Since partisan bitterness had thoroughly poisoned the waters so that we have no possible unifying candidate like Eisenhower, how about a mix of strategies #2 and #3? I'm not sure about the right red state candidate, but a not issue the GOP is way out of step wu8th the voters on is immigration, and that issue (handled carefully) I believe the Democrats could ride back to electoral success.

As a graduate student in Southern history, I'd like to commend Mr. Cost for a very cogent analysis of Southern voting trends. V.O. Key's "Southern Politics in State and Nation" is indeed a seminal work in Southern history, as well as political science.

However, there are a few reservations I'd like to offer about the concept of "critical elections." Now I will admit that some elections are more important than others.  The classic examples are 1896 and 1932.  But I really don't believe there is ever an election in which whole states, much less whole regions, switch parties permanently.  Mr. Cost kind of says as much in the later parts of his post, but I think the point deserves special emphasis and clarification.  Coalitions emerge over time, and die over time.  

In a sense, parts of the old FDR coalition are still alive and kicking.  Keep in mind that Kerry was able to turn back strong challenges by Bush in Midwestern and industrial states where it seemed like Bush was poised to make gains (e.g. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Illinois).

It is also important to remember that many of the so-called "critical elections" have been followed by reactionary elections in which the other side comes roaring back.  In 1952 and 1956 Eisenhower seemed to have discovered the key to unlocking the Democratic Party's stranglehold on the South.  But in 1960 JFK and LBJ won back critical territory in Dixie and elsewhere (TX, MO, ARK, LA, GA, SC, NC). In 1964 Johnson won a majority of Southern states, while Goldwater was unable to make inroads anywhere but the South (he only won his home state of Arizona, plus LA, MS, ALA, GA, SC).  Likewise, in 1972 Nixon and the GOP seemed to own the South (and the country), at least for a generation.  But in 1976 Carter re-claimed every Southern state except Virginia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1960

http://www.multied.com/elections/1964state.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1976

There are also mid-term elections to consider. Reagan was triumphant in 1984, but the GOP got its head handed to it in 1986.  Also, people often forget that 1992 was thought to be one of those critical "re-alignment" elections ... until 1994.

The bottom line is that lasting coalitions take time to build.  For this reason, I would prefer to call the most important elections "ice-breaker" elections.  It's kind of like going out on a first date.  If things go well, a good relationship might follow later down the line. If not, you're looking at a "one and done" situation. For this reason, I think it's important to keep in mind the distinction between national, state, and local politics. The South is solid GOP territory for elections at the congressional level on up.  On the local level there are still MANY conservative southern democrats.  If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: THESE PEOPLE HAVE NOT GIVEN UP ON THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, at least they haven't given up YET. There is a reason that they keep their democratic voter registration. They still vote democrat in local and some state elections.

Case in point: the 2003 gubernatorial election in Louisiana.  A lot of conservative democrats might have voted republican, but democratic candidate Kathleen Blanco gave voters just enough reason to stick with the Democratic Party that they elected her instead of republican Bobby Jindal.  One of those reasons was that Jindal was, um, darker than the average Louisiana politician usually is.  Another was that Blanco was a pro-life, mother of seven, democrat without any known scandal attached to her name (no small thing in Louisiana).

Bottom line: The South may not be quite as safe for republicans as the GOP might believe. There are still powerful emotional and historical ties that bind the South to the Democratic Party, or at least the memory of the Democratic Party as it once was.  And the South is the land that never forgets.  Never.  Give the democrats a few good wedge issues, like immigration or deficit spending, and many of the Southern states will start peeling away from the GOP. Republicans can not afford to take the region for granted.  

In addition to the Key book that Mr. Cost has briefed for us here, I'd like to point out a few other good books on Southern politics that help explain some of the trends we are seeing today:

Kari Frederickson, "The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968"

Peter Applebome, "Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture"

John Shelton Reed, "My Tears Spoiled My Aim: and Other Reflections on Southern Culture"

Wayne Flynt, "Cracker Messiah, Governor Sidney J. Catts of Florida"

Dan T. Carter, "The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics"

For those of you interested in  denser, more in depth books, try

C. Vann Woodward, "Origins of the New South, 1877-1913"

W.J. Cash, "The Mind of the South"

One note about Cash, his book is not well documented.  It is intended as a ruminative reflection on southern culture, not a scholarly study.  It is also more directly critical of the South than most other works on the region.

of Morgan Quito? Why should we take what they say seriously ? The following is a list of the factors they used to come up with their rankings.  Some of these seem designed to push down the rankings of poor and/or rural states.

Public Elementary and Secondary School Revenue per $1,000 Personal Income (Table 54) +

Per Pupil Public Elementary and Secondary School Current Expenditures (Table 108) +

Percent of Public Elementary and Secondary School Current Expenditures used for Instruction (Table 132) +

Percent of Population Graduated from High School (Table 168) +

Public High School Graduation Rate (Table 177) +

Percent of Public School Fourth Graders Proficient or Better in Reading (Table 196) +

Percent of Public School Eighth Graders Proficient or Better in Reading (Table 204) +

Percent of Public School Fourth Graders Proficient or Better in Writing (Table 212) +

Percent of Public School Eighth Graders Proficient or Better in Writing (Table 220) +

Percent of Public School Fourth Graders Proficient or Better in Mathematics (Table 228) +

Percent of Public School Eighth Graders Proficient or Better in Mathematics (Table 236) +

 Percent of 4th Graders Whose Parents Have Strict Rules about Getting Homework Done (Table 285) +

Average Teacher Salary as a Percent of Average Annual Pay of All Workers (Table 347) +

Percent of School-Age Population in Public Schools (Table 412) +

High School Drop Out Rate (Table 183) -

Percent of Public School Teachers Who Reported Being Physically Attacked in the Past 12 Months (Table 264) -

Special Education Pupil-Teacher Ratio (Table 325) -

Percent of Public Elementary and Secondary School Staff Who are School District Administrators (Table 359) -

Estimated Pupil-Teacher Ratio in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools (Table 370) -

Average Class Size in Public Elementary Schools (Table 390) -

Average Class Size in Public Secondary Schools (Table 391) -

 

The categories about funding (and perhaps also class size) seem to beg the question somewhat.  I tend to think that better-funded schools will perform better on the whole, but funding shouldn't be used as a proxy for educational quality.

I think the secularization of the NE and California is one key component.  The real animosity from the left seems to be directed at the religious wing of the Republican party (especially coming from the universities and hollywood).

But remember that margins in the NE and West Coast are a lot closer than the margins in the South.  Check out the margins.  Besides NY, RI, VT, and MA, here are the NE margins in the 2004 election:

MD -13

CT -10

ME -9

NJ -7

DE -7

PA -2

NH -1

In the South, only FL (+5), VA (+8), and AR (+9) had margins below +10.  NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TN, LA, WV, and TX were all double-digits (and Kentucky (+20) and Oklahoma (+32) vote like they are Southern).

FWIW, the West Coast is more competitive than the South as well [WA (-7), OR (-4), and CA (-9)].

Suffice it to say, there are a couple Southern states that could swing (FL, VA, AR), but most would require the Democrats to change gears.  Republicans could, however, win NH, PA, DE, and NJ if a less overtly religious figure was running (McCain, Hagel, Pawlenty?).

And probably more fundamental is the rather large discrepency in population between the NE and the South.  Further growth is exacerbating that trend with TX, FL, GA, and NC growing at the expense of NJ, NY, and MA.

After a basic level is met, the level of funding is not correlated to educational outcomes.  Similarly, class size and teacher pay has little effect.  Places such as DC where over $10,000 a year is spent per student have poor results.  The biggest effects come from three factors: 1) whether the student's parents are married, 2) the income of the parents, and 3) the educational level of the parents.

I wish I had the time to wish out the academic studies for these conclusions, but they are rather well known.  In the 60s the government had a report that said pretty much the same things but was too controversial to publicize.

The, unfortunate depending on your politics, truth is that government can't impact education as much as parents can.  If you really want improvement in school, then support pro-marriage initiatives... personally, I don't want government to get to involved in personal matters.

Part of the trouble with milking a certain issue is that, for it to work on a national level and through a whole presidential campaign, it must be of high "salience."  That is, it must be of critical importance to voters -- it must be a principal criterion which they use to vote.  This is why I recommended selecting the right candidate, as opposed to finding such an issue.  The Democrats might encounter such an issue, and immigration might be that issue.  But, today, immigration is not highly salient.  To my knowledge, there is no currently highly salient issue that definitely cuts against Republicans.  

Parties cannot really manufacture salience.  When candidates attempt to do so, it is usually a sign of weakness.  This is why this strategy is not really much of a strategy.  It is more of a hope that the tide of events will turn in their favor.

I should add that, in relation to the highly salient issue that cuts against the party in power, there are also "valence issues" that could do the same thing.  These are issues where nobody really takes a stand on the other side (e.g. on the issue of corruption, nobody is publicly "for corruption"), but they nevertheless can cut against candidates.  The GOP got blasted in the '74 congressional election because of Watergate, which was a valence issue.  These also cannot be manufactured -- and, again, attempts to do so are signs of weakness (e.g. Dole's incessant query at the end of the '96 campaign: "Where's the outrage?"  When your candidate is shouting that, you know his goose is cooked!).

I'd be interested to know what qualifies as a "basic level" of funding, and what percentage of schools actually fund at that level.  Likewise, I wonder about "class size has little effect."  That may be true under a certain threshold number of students, but what is the threshold?  

And aren't some of these issues still being pretty hotly debated?  

But still, like I said, I agree that putting funding in there begs the question, in the absence of hard evidence that more money=better education.

It's the closest thing to a salient issue that cuts against the GOP.  It hasn't come to fruition yet, but after 8 years of Presidential control and 12 years of house control it may start to bite away at otherwise GOP-leaning voters.

However, secularization itself does not capture the nature of the trend.  Devout Hispanic Catholics still vote with the Dems generally.  White Catholics are also still with the Dems, especially in the Northeast, though to a much lesser degree.  Above all, black evangelicals are strong Democrats.  

Furthermore, lots of relatively secular people are still with the GOP.  Suburban male seculars, for instance, are with the GOP.  

I agree with you that secularization (I would call it religiosity) is a strong factor that helps divide the parties along cultural lines.  However, I think that it really cannot be isolated from other demographic variables (geography, class, race, particular faith, etc).  

If, as you propose, southerners identify with the republican party because of a distrust of government, what do you think will be the outcome of the republican party's robust use of the government now that it controls the legislative and executive branches?

It would seem to leave a good -- if somewhat surreal -- opening for the democratic party to regain ground as the party of reform.  Dunno if they could pull it off, but I think that there is risk in the republicans' current use of governmental power.

There is a non-religious, suspicious of government wing in the South and West that feels let down by the 1994 revolution... but they have no where else to go.  Democrats are opposing the few things that Republicans have offered this group (Social Security Reform with PRAs, minor cutbacks in spending, and tax cuts).  And there seems to be no real effort by Democrats to give up their attachment to "ever larger government."  If they really were so concerned about the PATRIOT Act and the war and if they did not want to ally with social conservatives, they should have fought for the moderate libertarians.  Maybe in the future they will, but I see no sign of it right now.

Theoretically, such an opening exists.  However, three points should be made:

(A) I think you are presuming a sophistication on the part of the average voter that does not empirically exist.  Republicans vote for this bigger government stuff because they know they can get away with it with their own constituency.  It is almost 100% benefit and 0% cost to them.  This is not the sort of governmental stuff that animates people, even anti-government people in the South.  After all, the federal government is building bridges, statues, etc.  It really is not amenable to the kind of "don't tread on me" rhetoric that has animated American political thought since the 1760s.  (This is not to justify such practices, I personally do not much care for them, it is only to clarify the empirical situation.)

As an empirical matter, the GOP need not even enact many conservative measures to remain in office.  To a large extent, members of Congress, regardless of geography, are reelected based upon their issue positions.  Symbolism over substance is not a wholly dominant theme of American election campaigns -- voters sometimes do expect results and sometimes do hold their representatives accountable for results.  Nevertheless, Congressional members find that it is often enough to take a position on an issue, and not do anything to ensure that the position is ultimately adopted into law.

Generally, a GOP betrayal of anti-government principles would have to be a monumental betrayal to arouse the average voter from his relatively dormant state.  It could not be one small betrayal, or even a series of betrayals.  From what I have read about congressional voting patterns, the GOP would have to commit a series of significant betrayals to get in trouble with their home districts.  

(B) It would also require the Democrats take the opposite position.  This is surreal, as you say.  I would also say it is unrealistic, and therefore not a "good" chance.  It is true, of course, that the Democrats flirt with this "GOP has betrayed its fidelity to limited government" argument, but this rarely rises above the level of general partisan noise.  For good reason.  The Democrat's objection is simply that the books are not balanced.  They don't want to reduce spending in the aggregate.  They just want to raise taxes.  They throw around phrases like "fiscal conservatism," but they are not really, and so the long-term viability of that strategy for them, in my mind, is nil.  They'd get pinned to the ground in the future for raising taxes.  In other words, the Democrats -- to take advantage of this opportunity with Southern conservatives -- would have to modify their philosophical position or become even more hypocritical than the GOP.  

(C) There is a self-correction that goes on with political parties in their relationship to the electorate.  It is mediated by elections.  And thus, if the GOP steps too far out-of-bounds on this issue, causing them to lose votes and seats, the party will correct itself for the next contest.  As I mentioned in my original post, the political process has market-like conditions.  And so, there is ultimately a kind of equilibrium that sets in.  This equilibrium is in part a consequence of the rationality of political players as well as the structural conditions of American politics.  Both are pretty stable.  Rationality is always rationality, and the broader structure only shifts slowly over time.  

This is why I tend to think that the current political alignment is one that no single person, perhaps not even a generation, can modify at its fundamentals.  Even if a minority of conservatives think the GOP is not acting in a truly conservative fashion, this itself is not an indication that the current situation is untenable.  It is simply an indication that the party's rhetoric and its actions do not align, which in turn is an indication that they do not have to align to achieve electoral success, which in turn is an indication that the average voter (even the average Southern conservative voter) does not pay enough attention to notice this lack of alignment, or does not care about it.

Personally, while I do not like all of that spending, I honestly do not expect it ever not to happen.  Expecting it not to happen is really expecting too much of politicians.  They all want reelection, and voters like it when they "get their share" of federal money.  It is expecting too much of congressmen, even Republican ones, to put their own reelection at risk for some abstract principle with which even their own constituents do not really agree.  

I've always been really skeptical about warnings that the GOP is going to pay a huge price for spending.  No politician has ever paid a price for bringing the bacon home.  And since our legislature is comprised of members from geographically-bound, single-member, plurality-winner districts, how is the GOP going to suffer?  They cannot be made to suffer as a collective entity, for the voters have no contact with the GOP collectivity, but only through individual GOP candidates, who are bringing home the bacon.   This is one of those situations wherein, given our structure, the collective good (spending restraint) does not happen because it is not in the interests of those who participate.  The only way it happens is if the broader institutional structure is modified.  Until then, the collective good does not happen, and nobody is punished because of it.

As an adopted New Englander (22 years this time around, 3 years in my youth), I'll chime in.  My opinion, however, is not authorative.  As the Burt an Ernie story has it, "Just because the cat has her kittens in the oven, it doesn't make them biscuits".

New England, for its size, is actually pretty diverse socially and politically.

Massachusetts is now and forever shall be the liberal bastion of the US.  Remember 1972?  It is the definitive big government state, in the good old sense of ward politics, pork equals votes, liberalism.  If Republicans make headway in NE, MA will be last bastion to fall.

Connecticutt votes upper middle class, suburban Yankee liberal.  CT Dems trend conservative, CT Reps trend liberal.  CT voters do not like firebreathing pols of any stripe -- they prefer their discourse pithy and, if possible, urbane.  They will not find the enthusiastic character of current Republicanism congenial.

Rhode Island splits the difference between CT and MA.

Vermont is an odd duck.  It is by no means a big government state -- VT has, in my memory, refused or come close to refusing federal money rather than conform to federal drinking age and highway regulations.  Dean only got his "progressive" initiatives through because he did so without breaking the budget.  But, in Bernie Sanders, they also have the only capital-S Socialist rep in Congress.  New Hampshire folks talk ornery; Vermont folks are ornery.  Good luck winning them over to any point of view.

New Hampshire and Maine are the most naturally Republican states in NE.  New Hampshire has trended blue recently for two reasons: (1) lots of MA folks have moved there for the cheap real estate and taken their politics with them, and (2) Bush has alienated the Union Leader crowd with his big spending, immigration policies, and global ambitions.

Maine, like Vermont, pretty much goes its own way.  Also like Vermont, it's culturally a mix of old school Yankee conservatives, live and let live hippies (old and new), and blue collar middle class pluggers.  All are suspicious of Bush 43.

The unifying thread throughout New England is its conservative insistence on a separation of private and public life.  The association of modern Republicanism with conservative evangelicalism, with its public expressions of devotion and piety, are death here.

A brief story.

When the Red Sox won the World Series, Curt Shilling apparently gave voluble testimony of his gratitude to God for helping him pitch through his injury and win the game.  A day or so later, I listened to a local radio talk show hosted by a couple of middle class, conservative Irish Catholic Boston homeboys -- a newspaper columnist, a sportswriter, one or two other guys.  To a man, their opinion was -- Curt, great game, keep your religion to yourself.  These were, by far, guys who are not hostile to religious faith or practice, family values, or even GWBush in particular.  Private life is private life, and public life is public life, and they should remain separate.  We don't want to know your private business, unless it concerns us, and we don't care to put ours on public display.  It's a New England thing.

As long as Bush courts the religious and "family values" conservatives, he won't make much headway here.  It's not our way.

Cheers -

Readers of Best of the Web on opinionjournal.com are familiar with the term.

"We base this on two assumptions. First, that liberal and Democratic women are more likely to have abortions. Second, that children's political views tend to reflect those of their parents--not exactly, of course, and not in every case, but on average. Thus abortion depletes the next generation of liberals and eventually makes the population more conservative. We call this the Roe effect, after Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion."

and

"Some interesting findings:

    * Of the 10 states with the highest teen abortion rates, Al Gore carried eight, and all by more than 10%. George W. Bush narrowly carried the remaining two, Nevada (by 3.5%) and Florida (by less than 0.1%).

    * Similarly, of the 11 states with the highest teen abortion ratios, Gore carried nine, all but one (Washington by 5.6%) by more than 10%. Bush carried two, by small margins: New Hampshire (by 1.3%) and Florida.

    * Of the 20 states with the lowest teen abortion rates, Gore carried only five: Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

    * Bush carried every one of the 20 states with the lowest teen abortion ratios.

    * The District of Columbia, which Gore carried by 76.2%, had a higher teen abortion rate than any state, and a higher teen abortion ratio than any state except New Jersey and New York. (It is tied with Massachusetts.)

    * The state that gave Bush his biggest margin, Utah (40.5%), had the lowest teen abortion rate and tied with Kentucky for the lowest teen abortion ratio.

    * Wyoming, where Bush had his second biggest victory margin (40.1%), is something of an outlier. It ranked 14th, the third-highest among Bush states, in both teen abortion rate and ratio."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004780

I think the demographics are a big reason why the south (and other Red States) will have tough time going back to a liberal party.

I don't want to turn this into an abortion debate (the last one on the Condi thread was enough for a while), but rather a focus on the demographics of its effect.

but FDR won 42 out of 48 states in 1932, and carried each southern state by huge margins.  The Hoover Democrats were in 1928, and their opposition to Al Smith of NY (Catholic and anti-prohibition) led them in droves to Hoover, who carried over half of the old Confederacy.

Still, I agree with most of what has been put down here today.  The south is right to mistrust the government, because that same government wrought ruthless retribution during Reconstruction by allowing the northern radicals to exact revenge (before anyone says anything, I am from California).  Honestly, Lincoln's death was the worst thing that could have happened for the south, for his compassion was lost with his terminal breath.  Andy Johnson did not have the ability to stand up to the radicals, and things got worse under Grant (arguably our most inept Chief Executive).  While the southern dems may have reacted negatively to the civil rights planks of the modern Democratic party, most southerners still voted for Truman, Stevenson and even Kennedy.  Goldwater broke the mold by carrying the Deep South (which a Republican had never done), and that set the stage for Nixon's sweep in '72.  Carter capitalized on southern pride, but he did not win a majority of the white vote against Ford.  Reagan then sealed the deal.  Since 1960, no Democrat to my knowledge has won a majority of the southern white vote, and I don't even know that Clinton won a plurality with Perot's help (my instinct says no).  In both state and Federal elections, the Dems have had to rely on winning 90% of the black vote which in southern states constitutes anywhere from 20-30% (well above the national average).

Simply put, Dean's vision of being competitive in Dixie is nothing more than a sick man's delusion of grandeur.  So long as they think that southerners are Red State Rubes with no class and even less education, it will stay that way.

"So long as they think that southerners are Red State Rubes with no class and even less education"

I don't see this in Dean's statements.  Do you?  If so, where?

Thanks -

Before the caucuses:

From CNN.

How do you get from here:

"White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us, and not [Republicans], because their kids don't have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too"

to here:

"So long as they think that southerners are Red State Rubes with no class and even less education"

I'm genuinely curious, because lots of folks make that leap.  I don't see it.  As far as I can tell, Dean's point is clear, and, whether you agree with it or not, is not condescending.  To the contrary, actually.

Can you please parse the logic for me?

THanks -

To be completely honest, I don't know exactly how that happens, either, except to say that people always bring their own prejudices to the table when they read any statement from a politician.  And when the stakes are high, both the volume and the distortion knobs can get turned up.

There are lots of historical examples of cases wherein politicians said something that may have been completely innocuous, or even (from their perspective) very honest and straightforward,  but made a big difference in the public mind.

Things like this are not news to anyone, either.  Jon Stewart did a pretty good job of portraying Paul Wolfowtiz as a mental defective (and worse) the other night.  

kowalski -

Thanks for the candid reply.

Anyone else want to explain how they get from Dean's remarks to an assumption that he views Southerners as ignorant rubes?

Thanks -

Allow me to refute, again, the prevalent myth that people in the blue states or the northeast generally, or New England in particular, are "secular", in the sense of lacking religious faith or practice.  It ain't so.

Many, many, many, many people in New England are religious.  Lots and lots and lots of folks go to church, temple, or what have you on a regular basis.  As a point of fact, the "what have you" component is vanishingly small.  Most folks are Christian or Jewish.  It's a Judeo-Christian world up here in snowy New England.

What is, by far, not as common here as elsewhere is conservative evangelicalism.  Far fewer people adhere to an inerrant hermeneutic.  Far, far fewer people practice the kind of public, demonstrative piety that is common elsewhere.  It's not part of our culture.  Feel free to worship that way if you like, but we don't care to.  It's not part of our culture, at least since the Shakers died out.

As noted elsewhere in this thread, New Englanders tend to observe a boundary between public, civil life, and private life.  One consequence of this is that we are also generally uncomfortable with the political activism of conservative evangelicals, and with their close relationship to members of the Bush administration.

None of this amounts to secularism.  Get that out of your heads, please.

Regarding Hollywood and the universities, both are hothouse communities with relatively large megaphones for their size.  Speaking for myself and virtually everyone I know, noone cares about or pays any attention to the political opinions of Hollywood types.  Some are interested in the debates of academics, but in general they are seen as being "rara ava", with interesting opinions, but in general having little direct relevance to daily life.  In the Boston area, the Catholic Church almost certainly is more influential on public opinion and attitudes than either Hollywood or the universities.

To summarize:

New England -- not a secular spiritual wasteland.

Blue states -- not carnal hellholes of decadent indolence and depravity.

We actually include many people of faith, are generally hard-working and industrious, are frequently frugal and modest in our living habits.  We also, for many reasons other than rampant secularism, tend to vote blue.  It's actually rather a nice place to live.

You all do have a shot at New Hampshire, but your best path to victory there will come from a balanced, or more balanced, budget.

Cheers -

Part of it is repeating a stereotype as an outsider.  Your reaction to the "secular northeast" is similar to Southerners reaction to being categorized as "confederate flag decal" types.  Both describe a significant part of the population but no where near a majority much less the whole population.  When an outsider repeats such a stereotype, most people get defensive.  My guess is that is what happened (accompanied with the shock of some liberals over reaching out to confederate flag types).  The combination sent it into "the new meaning" realm.  A similar thing happened with both sides accrediting Bush's victory to the social conservatives when his national security policies actually accounted for most of his gain.

There are a couple of interesting things here to me.

First is the perception of Dean as an "northeastern elitist".  Dean comes from old NY money, but he has none of the partician aloofness of, for instance, John Kerry.  Dean, as far as I can tell, is direct, even blunt, and perhaps too candid.  I get no vibe of superiority from him.

Second, Dean was governor of Vermont.  Vermont is a thinly populated, relatively poor, rural state.  There are probably not a lot of pickups with confederate flags, but there are a hell of a lot of pickups.  Folks hunt and fish for food, farm, work what jobs they can get.  The kind of person Dean was referring to in his comment is one he is, no doubt, more than familiar with, and probably more than comfortable with.

Third, is it really all that unclear what Dean was talking about?  Middle to lower middle class folks driving trucks, blue collar pluggers.  Folks who didn't get all that much out of Bush's tax cuts.  Folks who may or may not have health insurance, may or may not have access to decent schools.

IMO, the stupidest thing Dean did in his campaign (OK, maybe second stupidest after the big scream) was to apologize for the confederate flag statement.  If he was smart, he would have stuck to his guns and repeated his statement, loudly and at length, until the point got across.

Cheers -

First, I was out of the country at the time of that statement (in the Peace Corps).  So I definitely didn't get the full reaction and everything.  But it was my impression that half of the criticisms were from Democrats (mainly race-baiting ones) who were appalled at the "outreach" to confederate flag types.  If that is a wrong characterization, please say so.

Second, I know very well that Dean's record and background were rather centrist.  If he had run on those, I would have been worried about him.  Instead he ran as a fire-breathing, anti-war, leader of the Bush haters.  It got him notoreity and eventually the chairmanship of the DNC, but it also got him a reputation as one of the fire-breathing, anti-war, Bush haters.  Fair or not, he put himself in that position and the label is stuck on him now.

Finally, as we all know Dean could have said many of the things he said more carefully.  For example, "blue collar workers who support their families and who may not have health insurance should be voting for us, not them" would not have offended many people.  But instead of focusing on something positive such as their "work" or "family," Dean used stereotypes that are often invoked by media and Northeasterners to discredit or embarass Southerners.  It is his inability to be careful with his words that made some Republicans happy about his DNC chairmanship.  And now calling Reupblicans "evil" and "brain dead" has proved those Republicans right in my mind.  He is continuing to be a fire-breathing, anti-war, Bush hater.  That is his choice.  I hope it brings him and his party a stint in the minority just as I would if a RNC leader espoused hate as part of their rhetoric about their political opponents.  Dems would be smart to ditch him sooner rather than later.

Doverspa -

I think you're correct on all points.

I would say more than half of the criticism of his remarks came from Dems who used the opportunity to paint the confederate flag as the fetish of racism, and themselves as the defenders of civil liberties.  It was a pile of bull, and Dean should simply have called them on it.  He chickened out and backed down.

I agree that Dean's campaign was coopted by the more flaming contingent of the left.  On the issues Dean is not a big flaming liberal, and I don't think he sought that constituency out, but once they found him, I think it went to his head.  Thomas, elsewhere, commented along the lines that Dean's ego ran away with him, and I think there's something to that.  To be fair to Dean, he was also one of the only guys to actually have the stones to stand up to Bush's foreign policy at the time, which is something I give him an enormous amount of credit for.

I hadn't seen the "brain dead" quote, but I had seen the "I hate Republicans" item.  You are correct, Dean seems to have a talent for speaking first and thinking later.  It is a liability.  

Of all of the politicians on the scene now, Dean is hands down the closest to my own point of view on the issues.  Pragmatic, non-ideological, fiscally conservative, with a strong role for goverment acting in the public interest.  I've been following Dean since the days when all he had was his crappy one-page "Healthy America" website.  He was the first politician who ever got dollar one out of me.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure he has the temperament for the big show.  Maybe his approach will shake things up for the better for the Dems, maybe his nudgy, edgy personality will simply annoy the hell out of everyone and Dems will lose any friends they still have.  The jury's out.

I like Reid, though.  ;-)

Cheers -

...just helping out somebody's whose fidelity to precision is the same.  I thank you for the catch, and am glad that my mistake did not damage my argument!

I have corrected my original text.  Thank you again.

Re: Actually, snideness aside, I always wondered how New England went so left over the course of time.

New England has always been the most leftwing part of the country. In 17th century terms, the Puritans were radicals, in the 18th century New England was the most pro-independence region and in the 19th century it was the cradle of the abolition and women's suffrage movements.

Re:  But, today, immigration is not highly salient.

I think you are incorrect on this. Just because the Powers That Be have chosen to tiptoe around the issue does not mean that there is not a lot of public frustration over current immigration policy (or non-policy), and I believe it may be easily arousable. When President Bush proposed his liberal immigration reforms conservative web sites and talk radio programs boiled over with outrage. And in border areas even liberals are fed up with the status quo. My cousin Mary who lives in Tucson is as leftwing as can be (her magzine rack is stuffed with back issuse of the Nation) but she too wants to clamp down on the free-for-all of illegals coming into the state and voted for the recent referrendum seeking to limit public benefits for them.. If the Dems can exploit this sentiment they will ride it back into the White House.

Re: First, that liberal and Democratic women are more likely to have abortions. Second, that children's political views tend to reflect those of their parents--not exactly, of course, and not in every case, but on average.

I would suggest that both of these are highly dubious propositions. The latter especially does not conform to the reality that I find in myself or people I know.

Blue states -- not carnal hellholes of decadent indolence and depravity.

There goes my vacation plans.

Re: In the South, only FL (+5), VA (+8), and AR (+9) had margins below +10.  NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TN, LA, WV, and TX were all double-digits (and Kentucky (+20) and Oklahoma (+32) vote like they are Southern).

From a cultural standpoint, Kentucky is a southern state, and Oklahoma is part southern (the eastern region near the Ozarks is sometimes called Little Dixie). Florida on the other hand is only part Southern, cheifly the panhandle and the northern counties. Southern and central Florida has been so heavily settled by northerners (example: me) and Hispanics that it has wholly lost its Southern character, to the extent that it ever had it.

On the issue of religiosity we need to remember that it is conservative Protestantism (along with the LDS) that is the bastion of the GOP's hold on "religious voters". Catholics, even when traditionalists, are still quite wary of the GOP, whose reputation for laissez faire economics runs against the grain of RC social teaching. Jews still strongly trend Democrat, as do Black evangelicals. Smaller religious groups, like Muslims, Buddhists, Eastern Christians and the like are very much up for grabs.

Re: None of this amounts to secularism.  Get that out of your heads, please.

A good point about New England! And something people need to consider is that Protestant Evanglicalism/Fundamentalism and the Pentacostal (the two are rather different faith communities) are fairly modern movements and (originally at least) were exclusively North American. This also underlies the suspicions one finds in Europe, even in conservative circles, of American religiosity. It is not just anti-Christian (although that exists too) but the suspicion of traditional Christians, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Reformation-derived Protestant (Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist) for a populist religious movement that seems theological questionable at the least.

But where is the evidence that GOP-leaning voters will find the Demos solutions (i.e.: trading your HMO bureaucrat for one on the General Schedule) any more to their liking?

It's hard to see how this cuts against the GOP (in spite of their total failure in this area) until and unless the Demos come up with something better than Hillary-Care - and running Hillary in '08 is probably counterproductive to that goal.

Cheers.

While I applaud your clear delineation between Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism and Pentecostals could you expound on what you consider Fundamentalism and how that distinct religious doctrine (Darby's "The Fundamentals")can be conflated with basic Evangelicals who can run the spectrum of TULIP Calvinists to Methodists many of whom would not buy into Darby's Dispensationalism?

Assuming that abortion rates reflect political affiliation is just silly.  Look at Utah for instance.  Although it may have the lowest abortion rate in the country, I bet that is mostly due to the lack of abortion services in Utah and the control of the Mormon Church in Utah.  When Mormons in Utah want to do bad things (e.g., gamble, buy adult toys and videos, get abortions) they leave the state.  At the Utah/Wyoming border on I-80 there is a WalMart sized Adult Video store and the lot is full of cars with Utah plates.  On the Utah/Nevada border on I-80 is Wendover, with casinos full of cars with Utah plates.  I bet that a partial explanation for the high abortion rates in Wyoming and Nevada is Utah residents getting abortions in those states.

...I was not implicating Dean when I spoke of many on the left viewing southernors in a derogatory fashion (I believe I said "red state rubes with no class and even less education").  What I am speaking of is the undeniable that derision I have witnessed amongst Hollywood know-it-alls, the leftist elite and their crony students on many a campus which is focused on white people (most of them would say white trash) who live in the south and vote republican.  This seething hatred cannot be denied, and so long as that is the face of the Democratic party, the Dems will not find many votes outside congressional districts whose lines are guaranteed by the Voting Rights Act.

Turth be told, despite my free trade, right-leaning ways, I actually like Howard Dean, albeit in a strange way.  At least he is honest, and that is more than I can say about most politicians of any stripe.

Protestant Fundamentalism is grounded in the dogma that the Bible is inerrant and must be read naively and literally unless a parabolic or allegorical leaning is clearly intended, and generally without reference to the specific cultural circumstances that informed the authors of Scripture, as Fundamentalists generally seem to be of the opinion that the writers of Scripture were, in some sense, unconscious (or at least deprived of free will) while they wrote so that Scripture is not merely inspired by God, but is His direct work. Indeed at times Fundamentalists speaks of Scripture as if it were itself Divine, a squaring of the Trinity by adding a Fourth Person. In this they resemble Muslim attitudes toward the Qu'ran (since Islam holds that the Qu'ran was eternal, and was only revealed to Mohammed not actually written by him under inspiration)

Evangelicalism generally allows a much broader latitude of personal interpretation for Scripture, and is more focused on the religious experience itself ("Born again") rather than on the Bible, although the Bible is centrral for Evangelicals as well. In the political sphere you will Evangelicals who espouse fairly liberal positions (Jim Wallis for example) but you will not find politically liberal Fundamentalists.

of my quibble. I don't think you can treat Evangelicals and Fundamentalists (though many on this list refer to anyone who believes in Scripture, inerrant or otherwise as a "Fundamentalist") as a  Evangelical/Fundamentalist group. They are quite different religious traditions in origin and belief.

If I was teaching a course on pactices in the social sciences, and I needed an example of a bad practice, I would probably use this asinine "Roe Effect" garbage.  

Why is this the case?  Several reasons:

(1) The conclusion is so radical, and counter-intuitive.  This is not necessarily a problem in making an argument.  However, if you are making a radical argument like this, you have to rally really good data structured by really good theory.  An argument like this really requires a 500 page book to do it right.  Anything less than this is just playing cavalier.  And, the perceptive reader will pick up on just how self-indulgent you are being, and discount your arguments that much more.

(2) The two assumptions simply cannot be assumed.  The first assumption is actually the core of the argument.  He assumes this, he is only a half-step away from his final conclusion.  This is always a cheap trick in any argument -- somebody "assumes" that which is really the bone of contention.  Furthermore, this assumption is not at all intuitive.  It is actually counter-intuitive, and thus cannot be assumed.  It must, rather, be demonstrated.  Key, empirical problem: those who seek abortion tend to be younger, and younger people tend to be less involved politically, and therefore more likely to have no partisan or ideological affiliation.  To "assume" that this is not in fact the case for abortioning women, Taranto would have to rally scores of facts to get around this common, empirical knowledge that is well-grounded in research,  Because he does not, he cannot assume that would-be mothers are Democrats.

(3) The second assumption was not controversial forty years ago, but lately, the trend in public opinion has seen a marked decline in the passing on of political affiliation.  Specifically, parents pass on their affiliation to their children, but the affiliation is less strong.  This is why there are so many young people who are Independents.  In other words, he cannot assume that would-be humans are also would-be Democrats.

(4) The facts he does rally are completely circumstantial, and have a good chance of showing a spurious causal relationship.  The Democrats won most aborting states?  Well, abortion is principally an urban thing, right?  And the Democrats won urban areas not because of this abortion issue, right?  So maybe, just maybe, abortion does not enter into it this way.  

(5) Even if we are to assent to the argument at this point, how much massaging must there be of the math to argue that this is a politically significant thing, i.e. that this has had some kind of effect on the broader polity?  You cannot just count up the number of babies and say that X would be Democrats and Y would be Republicans.  They would have to be filtered into the broader political environment -- all relevant demographic characteristics, likelihood of receiving partisan ID from parents, likelihood of voting in any given election, likelihood of living long enough to vote, etc. etc.  That would take some serious mathematical lifting, and each probabilistic filter would have to be defended.

I am not saying that the WSJ is wrong.  They might be right.  However, they have no rational grounds to believe what they argue.  Bad assumptions and bad data do not yield good social science.  Never has, never will.

Across religions (except Islam), the more often you go to church or the more dogmatic you report your views to be, the more likely you are to vote Republican.  This includes evangelical Christians, traditional Catholics, and orthodox Jews.

Your statement "Catholics, even when traditionalists, are still quite wary of the GOP" is about 2 decades too old.  Catholics broke 52% - 47% for Bush in the 2004 election.  Catholics who go to church weekly supported the President 56% - 43%.

You are correct that black evangelicals still trend Democratic, but it is mainly (although not entirely) a cultural/racial issue not an evangelical one.  And many black evangelical leaders have started listening to Republican outreach efforts and some endorsed the President.  Specifically, in my home state (Oklahoma), religious black Americans helped the President win 28% of the black vote.

And as the Economist is fond of pointing out, how often you attend church is a better predictor of voting than income these days.  Evangelical Christians might be the base, but other religious groups have gravitated toward the GOP in recent years as well.  The gay marriage issue will probably continue that trend.

Traditional Catholics tend to find the GOP's opposition to murdered infants terribly appealing, thanks. There's a reason we're inordinately represented among so-called Reagan Democrats (many of whom, natch, became Reagan Republicans -- example, me).

"I bet that a partial explanation for the high abortion rates in Wyoming and Nevada is Utah residents getting abortions in those states"

Doubtful with at least 15 Planned Parenthood centers in Utah, unless you can provide statistics otherwise.

Re: Your statement "Catholics, even when traditionalists, are still quite wary of the GOP" is about 2 decades too old.  Catholics broke 52% - 47% for Bush in the 2004 election.

In this election, yes. But in the last few? I believe that Gore captured the Catholic vote back in 2000, as did Clinton (a plurality, not a majority) in 92 and 96. One election does not a trend make. And on the issues, while the GOP is a good fit with RC traditionalists on "life" issues it is less good a fit on foreign policy (the Church disapproves of the Iraq War) or social justice issues. The fact that a few high profile Catholics (Neuhaus, Novak) have decided to buck the Church on these issues by endorsing Bush across the board is not a good basis for claiming that Catholics as a group are doing so.

Re: Evangelical Christians might be the base, but other religious groups have gravitated toward the GOP in recent years as well.  The gay marriage issue will probably continue that trend.

Even the Evangelicals are not wholly a captive support group. There have been some rumblings from that flank of late as many of these people are not quite on board on Iraq or Social Security either. As for gay marriage, that's about maxed out and within a decade it will begin to pass its freshness date as the older generation that strongly opposes it dies off. The GOP may well hold onto the Evangelicals for a long time to come, but anti-gay politics won't be how they do it, any more than the anti-Civil Rights stance in the 60s is what has allowed them to hold the South now that "Segregation forever" is no longer a popular slogan.

Evangelical/Fundamentalist group. They are quite different religious traditions in origin and belief.

Perhaps I am wrong about this, but I have always read that today's Evangelical movement began as a reform of Fundamentalism, one that deemphasized Biblical literalism in favor of the personal relationship with Jesus. Supposedly this was pioneered by Billy Graham (as its most public advocate) who came out of the Fundamentalist tradition, and is still reviled by some (like the Bob Jones crowd) to this day for his apostacy.

Re: But where is the evidence that GOP-leaning voters will find the Demos solutions (i.e.: trading your HMO bureaucrat for one on the General Schedule) any more to their liking?

Single payer healthcare generally polls quite well. Though of course when one gets down to the details the voters begin to walk. The healthcare issue so far is one of those issues (education is another) where the people generally accept that there is a serious problem and say that they want the problem solved. But they also believe (for the most part) that they personally do not have a serious problem, that it's other people who do, and they want their own situation to remain unchanged. Back in 92 healthcare helped Clinton win the election, but then Hillarycare (which was not even "socialized medicine" though it was a bureaucratic mess) turned the public off. Healthcare certainly cuts in favor of the Dems but I don't see it as something they can ride to victory, absent some major calamity which damages the system for most people--and by that I mean something on the order of a severe flu pandemic or a terrorist nuke, which would render our current system financially kaputt.

1. My point on Catholics is that they are coming over to the Republican side.  I don't have the numbers in front of me, but in the 1960s I bet Catholics were 70+% Democrats.  Now it is 50-50 with a Catholic Democrat running.  Gay marriage and abortion will continue to cipher off Catholics until Democrats stop defending abortion-on-demand.

I do, however, agree that opposition to gay marriage will stop being a plus for Republicans in a generation.  But it may still pull many Catholics into the party while pushing out others.  And it is not maxed out right now.  Black Christians and Hispanic Catholics are still in the process of giving Republicans a fair hearing, at least partially because of the gay marriage issue.

2. Your analogy is a little off.  The Southern Democrats who pushed for segregation did lose out, but don't act like they were Republicans.  It's dishonest.  Democrats filibusterd the Civil Rights Act.  More Republicans voted for it than Democrats, etc , etc.  Furthermore, being against gay marriage and being anti-gay are not the same.  And conflating the two is hurting Democrats right now.

is pretty tortured. One might be able to make a cogent case for that, but one can probably make a cogent case for most anything. I would more close adhere to this history in most respects.

It is a mistake to think of Evangelicalism as a new phenomenon or that today's Evangelicalism is far removed from its roots (read the words to Amazing Grace for, IMHO, the best description of the movement). The Evangelical movement in the Anglican church gave rise to Methodism far pre-dating Darby.

I wasn't trying to say it was gospel (or good theory), my only comment was about the demographics, something that I thought your original argument lacked. My personal thought is that this demographic shift probably comes not from `Roe' but from conservatives having more kids than liberals (on average). But on that point you would still have to stand by his assumption that parents generally pass on their ideology to their offspring (ala sins of the father), which I agree with. Please note that this doesn't mean that teenagers won't rebel, but that they (in time) will return to the political side of their parents when they mature.

Your rebuttal boils down to 2 points: more facts/data are needed (I agree) and his assumptions are wrong (I somewhat disagree).

Yeah, it's a shame.  But, we have great deli!

cheers -

If the Catholic Church has any influence in Boston, explain Teddy Kennedy.

Healthcare seems to be one of those things that your average voter wants to see reformed in the abstract - but whenever someone - anyone - comes up with any sort of solution, be it market-based (MSAs, Association Plans, etc.) or socialized (Hillary-care in steroids), all of a sudden it doesn't seem so appealing.

True, healthcare reform in general, and single-payer in particular, always polls well - until someone actually proposes it.  Then, the numbers start to drop like a brick.

As such, I see it as a net loser for whoever is forwarding a solution.

There are bigger chinks than healthcare in the GOP armor - immigration, for starters.  So, while healthcare always seems to be among the tip-top of domestic concerns, I've yet to see any proposal that is likely to catch fire with the electorate.

Sure, our healthcare system is the second-worst in the world.  The problem for the reformers is that every other principally government-run system, and all reforms are based more-or-less on these, ties for first.

In a million years, I could not hope to explain Teddy or any other Kennedy.

Cheers -

. . . Mark Kennedy's all right in my book ;)

Bush won white Catholics, as well as Catholics generally (by a hair).  But you are correct about Hispanic Catholics, and Catholics in the Northeast.

http://www.priestsforlife.org/elections/news/catholicvote.htm

http://www.christiantoday.com/news/ame/283.htm

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/politics/3890990/detail.html

is a little sloppy.  I have a year of seminary, so allow me to simplify this issue.  All protestant fundamentalists are evangelicals. Not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. Clear?

Yes, especially if the guests on NPR's "The Connection" are boring or it's pledge week. ;-)

Cheers -

to go into detail about why I disagree with the "New England way."  I've written so many posts on that subject, and related topics, that I you probably know what I'd say, and I probably know how you would respond.

But there is a question I'd like to ask you. What happened to New England? What you describe as the "New England Way" certainly didn't used to be characteristic of New England.  For the longest time New England politics and politicians were characterized by their religiosity. If you don't believe me, read any of the better known speeches by Charles Sumner.

http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/sumnerksh2.htm

http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/DIPH/R_0145_2096_002_19310
.asp

As a matter of fact, for almost the first century of this country's existence it was the South which, though not exactly secular, was certainly more skeptical of religion and its role anywhere beyond the church. This is essentially the argument Bertram Wyatt-Brown makes in "Honor and Violence in the Old South." Also, remember that it was a southerner who first penned the words "wall of separation between church and state."

So what happened to New England? How did a region so devout, and so intent on integrating their faith and their public life, adopt this bifurcated outlook on religion and politics? You wrote as though you were a New Englander, so I assume you can at least attempt an answer to this question.

Re:  "Protestant Evanglicalism/Fundamentalism and the Pentacostal (the two are rather different faith communities) are fairly modern movements and (originally at least) were exclusively North American."

Actually, Evangelicals trace their spiritual lineage from John Wesley and Methodism. Wesley himself was heavily influenced by the Moravians. The movement was brought to America by George Whitefield in the early 1700s.

http://www.ccel.org/php/disp.php3?authorID=schaff&bookID=encyc12&pa
ge=307

Thus, evangelicalism is NOT NEW, nor has it ever been exclusively American. BTW, Pentecostalism isn't really new either (see, Acts 2).

The margin in Mass. was a little bigger than the others.

The margin was large in "NY, RI, VT, and MA," which is why I left them out.  As for states that could flip, there are more in the NE than in the South without a fundamental shift.

A couple of points (one factual and one conjecture from my point-of-view living in the belly of the beast):

1 - Factual) The junior senator from the Commonwealth was at the top of the ticket for the Demos and that certainly contributed to his margin of victory here (as well as to why we get our clocks cleaned at the local level - again).

2 - Conjecture) MA, RI and to a lesser extent VT (the only states where GWB didn't crack the 40% threshold) are to the Demos what Utah, Kansas and Idaho are to the GOP - states that will be the last to flip in the event that there is a major political shift in one direction or the other.  This is acutely true (unfortunately for me) in the case of the People's Republic of Massachusetts - I highly doubt that "my guy" will carry the Commonwealth anytime soon.

Cheers.

that those 3 were the only under 40% states for Bush.  While UT, ID, KN, OK, KN, MT, WY, ND, SD, NE, TX, AL, IN, AK all come under 40% for Kerry (with MS and KT being exactly 40% and GA and SC being 41%).

So recaping, 3 states are out of Republican reach and 14 are out of Democratic reach without a major shift in politics.  That affects the Senate as well as the Electoral College.

We should take back the Dem Senate seats in ND (2), SD, MT, and NE which would make the Senate 60-40.

Jay your excellent analytical and writing skills are a breath of fresh air.  So good to have you back!

2 Peter 3:11-12

ron -

At the risk of taking this extremely far afield, can you explain your intent in the 2Pet citation?

Thanks -

I was intrigued by your use of Amos 5:18 as a username and wondered why, of all the names one could use, you chose that one. So I went with the theme, but with a different context, implying that while the admonition regarding the day of the Lord in Amos has as its context a superficial religious exterior evidenced by a lack of concern for justice, the day of the Lord is indeed a day Christians should look forward to and work to speed its coming.